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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (38902)	3/24/2000 10:51:00 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

John: regarding the great patent war of 2000: I think that another factor not to be missed is just the uncertainty of it all. Remember, Rambus is the aggrieved party here...they have the paper. Hitachi screaming about Sherman anti-trust violations is just silly. Rambus is not Microsoft....and they are willing to license the technology to anybody, just pay up! The uncertainty of how it all will play out is a real bummer for Hitachi...it will hurt them to have it out there. Time is on Rambus' side....and don't think there may not be some deep pocket friends who might help with the legal bills.

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (38902)	3/25/2000 11:28:00 AM
From: DHB	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

Not as much talk about the performance issues any more, but I was visiting with some heavy duty gamers, I found out where I am getting my next system and all the price mongers pull this sight up and see what the "penalty" is configure your own and do the math. ROCK ON RAMBUS DHB alienware.com

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (38902)	3/26/2000 3:12:00 PM
From: jim kelley	Respond to of 93625

Jdaasoc, I do not know about this specific UK article. But perhaps I can clarify some of the issues between DDR and RDraM. RDRAM technology is a "memory system" with a chip to chip interface protocol whereas DDR is simply a memory chip. To properly compare these two technologies DDR must be included in a memory system with ECC such that its functional capabilities are the same as RDRAM. No one has actually published any accurate cost comparisons yet. Moreover, DDR is still vaporware currently for RDRAM type applications. DDR still has to go up a production ramp and a production cost learning curve as well as memory system level testing before it can be compared with RDRAM. Meantime RDRAM is headed for its next generation parts. Also, a lot of the benchmarks that have been used to compare performances of RDRAM based systems and DRAM systems are not actually stressing RDRAM. The is especially true for dual channel dual processor systems greater than 700 MHZ. Thus the 13 % to 15% gains based on tests that were designed to stress the old DRAM systems. It would be interesting to see the load meters on processor and memory interactions while running these old tests. Also, some new tests would be desirable. For examples, running multiple instances of video clips. To use DDR, one needs to have a chipset to support the DDR components. This rest is architecture. One could use DDR chips to mimic the RDRAM chips as well. But we know that on chip designs are generally more reliable and faster than board level designs due to capacitance, transmission line effects, etc. The particular chip to chip interface technology is intrinsically less costly than DDR ram. This is what led to the decision by Sony to use RDRAM in Playstation II. The use of DDR in large server applications may initially be preferred because the large server manufacturers like to design their own memory-bus systems. They can design highly interleaved, highly parallel access memory system which achieve the bandwidth and latency required. A lot of these manufacturers design their own memory and bus controllers chips. In these cases, the companies usually have proprietary Processor-memory bus interfaces. RDRAM was designed for a standard Pentium processor-memory interface. Hence, it is not suitable for custom designed processor-memory buses. Multichannel RAMBUS controllers can be custom designed to support server applications. In fact, these controllers could be used to support DDR components since they are double rate like RDAM at the memory chip level. The more channels the higher the bandwidth. So RDRAM could be used for server applications. But I think server applications would do better with a RDRAM design optimized for large scale memory systems. :)

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (38902)	3/26/2000 5:31:00 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Morgan Stanley's vote for a $500 Rambus Posted 26/03/2000 12:14pm by Mike Magee Staff at The Register have now had a chance to view a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter report on Rambus which it issued on the 23rd of March last and which caused shares in the memtech company to rocket on Wall Street. The report is interesting in many ways, not least because it says that its target share price for Rambus is $500 with a market capitalisation of $8.5 billion. It also appears to think that the i820 chipset, despite the trouble the whole industry has seen with it, is a solid and sound platform for Rambus' future. Taiwanese manufacturers, as we have reported previously, are not of this view. The report says: "We rate RMBS Outperform. We believe that Rambus has one of the most attractive intellectual-property (IP) franchises in the semiconductor industry and that it will become the de facto standard for PC main memory during the next three to five years." The pre-split target of $500 (RMBS splits its shares 4:1 in May/June), is based on what Morgan Stanley describes as "the average IP company" with 2.5 times growth on C2001 earnings. Further, the investment broker believes investors who can tolerate price volatility should buy into it. Why? The report says that Rambus is similar to a software company, earning high gross margins because it just licenses its technology to semi firms, but it has the benefit of extremely low sales and marketing costs. It cites the Intel Developer Forum as showing that Chipzilla (our word) delivered straightforward support for Rambus. Of course, this does not take into account the highly ambiguous statements Intel also made about Willamette's big server brother Foster at IDF. Morgan Stanley thinks Rambus RIMMs will represent 50 per cent of the memory market in 2003. And the i820 debacle, or Caminogate as we describe it? The firm believes that the i820 chipset will bring "other bandwidth enhancing technologies to the PC platform". Rambus, as we reported from IDF, and since, is cutting costs and tweaking the platform to deliver volume production, says MS. Morgan Stanley admits it's biased. The small print on the analysis is interesting, because as a matter of course Morgan Stanley & Co, Dean Witter Reynolds and/or affiliates have managed or co-managed a public offering of Rambus stocks. And, more small print adds, such firms and their employees have or could have long or short positions on these stocks. Plus, the same outfit, in the words of the report: "make a market in the securities of Rambus and Intel". One independent analyst commenting on the report, says that the rationale for the $500 forecast is likely to deliver a target price of $422, based on 2.5 times growth being equivalent to the target pe. Three year growth amounts to 130 per cent, and 2001 earnings, which should be used as the $500 is a 12 to 18 month target, gives 2.5 x 130 x $1.30, which equals $422. Rambus (ticker RMBS) closed at $332.3125 at close of trading last Friday evening. ©